by Dr. Susan Block.

Recently, my deep “Grieving Process” took my breath away – literally – as every respiratory branch on my tracheobronchial tree closed up shop, all airways *on strike* against the new working conditions of Life After Max.

It’s been months since my beloved husband of 33 years and best-friend of 40, Pr. Maximillian R. Leblovic Lobkowicz di Filangieri (11/8/1943 – 5/13/2025) passed away, but I miss Max more every day. Maybe that’s why – combined with the stress of fighting to save Bonoboville from unspeakable attacks and having also managed to give myself a compressed spinal fracture doing a handstand (at my age) – my vital signs dropped like an osmium rock.

Read “Bottomless Grief & Topless Cake” on COUNTERPUNCH

Is There Life After Max?

So, off I lurched to Urgent Care, and as soon as sweet Dr. Kim saw this gasping, weeping widow, he had his nurse wheel me down to the ER, admitting me into a room where I could swear that, several months earlier, I had visited my darling post-stroke Max.

Thus began my Kaiser Hospital *Holiday* Weekend – a two-day blitz of blood, pee and mucus tests, x-rays, CT-scans and getting stabbed black-and-blue with IVs before being diagnosed with a bronchiectasis flare of bacterial pneumonia. Not viral, thank Goddess, but still gross and potentially lethal.

I’ve had my beefs with Kaiser and the U.S. Medical-Industrial Complex – mostly regarding Max’s care – but they helped me to heal before, and they seem to be helping me to heal again, despite my grim shape and bad attitude.

 

Sucking down oxygen and Albuterol, I scrolled through the Theater of Cruelty searing my rheumy eyes – starving Palestinians slaughtered in U.S.-funded Zionist killing fields; hard-working American immigrants (even fire fighters) disappeared by ICE Gestapo; ammosexual incels committing mass-shootings; Trumpocalyptic Department of WAR committing mass murder, bullying Venezuela; neo-Puritanical algorithms choking our voices like this mucus was choking my airways, the healing pleasures of sexuality perverted into nonconsensual sadistic domination, whole towns drowning or burning up in Capitalogenic climate change, poor people hurt and dying every day, lonely people never knowing true love like I was blessed to have shared with Max…

Yes indeed, when drunk on melancholy, there’s nothing like focusing on people much worse off than you to sober you up. It’s the Stoic way. So, there I lay, swaddled in hospital sheets, suspended in medical time, feeling horrible about *the news,* but grateful to have been so in love for 40 years of this life – and lucky just to be alive… though without my darling Max, it was hard to say what for.

I tried counting my reasons-to-live, like sheep: to honor Max’s memory, to tell his amazing but (mostly) true stories, the legacy of our lives together, and our hope for a better way, a way to help others, along with ourselves, a way we called The Bonobo Way of female empowerment, male nurturing, consenting-adult ecosexuality, sharing, caregiving and peace through pleasure.

But how could I do any of that with this corpus of crumbling clay and all airways on strike? I felt so bad, I almost canceled my whole week’s appointments. I almost canceled my whole life! Then late Sunday, my grief-clogged respiratory system opened like the parting of the Red Sea, and suddenly my Hospital Holiday was over. Not that my pneumonia was over, but a new physician named Dr. Kee gave me the keys: strong Levaquin antibiotics and Prednisone, aka Steroids.

Superwoman Steroids

Ah, steroids! Basically, there are two kinds: anabolic for athletes and corticosteroids for us old folks. For both, the ‘Roid is a miracle drug. It is also a very dangerous “controlled substance” with a host of dramatic reactions and goofy side effects. It made me feel like I was flying with the stars – breathing so easy – even on Mars! Yes, Elon, anyone can Occupy Mars on ‘Roids. The problem – whether anabolic or corticosteroids – is what at first strengthens eventually weakens and destroys you, if you take enough. That would happen rather quickly on Mars.

But back down here on the Goddess’ Green Earth, and at the strong part of the Corticosteroidal curve, I felt invincible, still deeply grieving Max, but hyper and high enough energy to keep all my appointments, even doing a four-hour UK media interview that is too top secret to say more, except that I was “brilliant” – or so the Brits assured me as I rattled on. If there was any “brilliance” involved, the credit goes to my super-supportive Bonoboville crew, as well as those Superwoman Steroids, giving me the gift of gab and the energy of a Motorbunny turned up to “high” and on “swivel.”

Even when my body gave out, my brain kept racing, sleep always just a dream, steroidal delusions churning with afterlife fantasies, astral projections and legit concerns:

How could I live without my darling Max? Why did he have that terrible stroke? Could I have prevented it? How? Could I have more effectively eased his pain or somehow saved him from Death? Why did people talk about Max’s “spirit” floating around like a benevolent Ghostbusters franchise? Even if that were true, what good would it do if I couldn’t feel his arms – or (in his last post-stroke year) his one good arm – around me? Oh, why did he die? Would he want me to join him or go on living for some reason? What reason? How would he want me to fight for Bonoboville? Or would he opt for flight? How would he want me to go on helping people and contributing to this increasingly fascist world? The same as before or differently? What would Max do?

Happy Birthday Rhiannon Aarons

One thing I knew Max would do would be to wish our dear friend Rhiannon Aarons a Happy Birthday. A frequent Dr. Susan Block Show guest, fellow DomCon’er (featured in two of our Bonobo Way presentations, once while dressed as Stormy Daniels, another time as a kinky bonobo), a sexy lefty political activist, and a real-life Hot Wife MILF, Rhiannon is also a distinguished art history professor, filmmaker, a 10x winner of the “Most Well-Rounded Kinkster” SUZY award, and a good friend to this weeping widow.

Eros and Thanatos are divine brothers, but not many humans can handle both with grace. Some of my most fabulous, life-affirming show guests can’t seem to face Max’s death, let alone my sorrow, and others who comfort me are in no way the life of the party. There are only a few who can juggle Eros and Thanatos – bottomless grief and topless cake – and Rhiannon is one of the few.

It helped that this was a black and white party, as inky black suited my mourning mood – festooned with commemorative Capt’n Max buttons, his cremation ashes packed into a couple of pendants, and his wedding ring around my neck. Accompanied by Christina in white and Tom in black and white, Bonoboville went On-the-Road again.

Rhiannon’s soirée was no Bacchanal, but rather a very tasty front yard dinner party, featuring a scrumptious, multi-flavored birthday cake conjured by Rhiannon’s hubby Jonny Minton‘s “Foraged Foods” partner in the Baking Arts.

Our first of three birthday gifts, in keeping with the theme, was a striking black-and-white photo, taken by whimsical Australian photographer Andrew Dunbar, of a lovely bespectacled lady, her cheerfully impudent tongue sticking out to reveal what looks like a piercing… and then you realize it’s a metal spider. What makes it special is that Rhiannon is making a film (rumor has it I’m in it for three seconds) of an award-winning script about spiders, spidery humans and the sticky webs we weave.

We also gave her an original, signed hardcopy of my third book (I’d already given her The Bonobo Way on her first show), The 10 Commandments of Pleasure. After three decades, it’s a perennial and, though the times have dramatically changed, all the commandments still apply. Check them out and prove me wrong!  The power to make peace through pleasure is the greatest power we have.

Our last gift was the most personal, but also the most taboo (this was a family party). So, I patiently munched on Foraged Foods, reminisced about Max and me in Cannes with fellow filmmakers, gazed upon candy-spouting piñatas, and waited until all minors had left the premises.

Birthday Cake Theater Therapy

Then the moment arrived. The Birthday Girl tore off the wrapping, and her eyes widened – though she had been forewarned that this would be a gift for her “closet collection” –  as she giggled with gleeful recognition, waving it around, half-hiding it and half-showing it off.

Taken by great Bonoboville photographer Jux Lii, it was a print of Rhiannon herself in all her “well-rounded” topless glory. Not that this was just any topless photo. Most of her ample bosom was covered by a large Foraged Foods cake with (not quite) 73 tall candles, all ablaze for Capt’n Max’s 73^rd birthday, as he blew out all those flickering flames with one formidable puff, smoke billowing all around us. Max’s airways were certainly not on strike, not that night anyway.

More than the cake holder, Rhiannon was also the sweetest ingredient – the cheesecake, so to speak – her strawberry-pink areola peeking out from under the cake on the uncensored version.

This dramatic and rather dangerous (don’t try it at home!) Birthday Cake Theater took place one unforgettable night in Bonoboville, on a show we called “V Without Violence,” November 5^th, 2016… Remember, remember, the 5^th of November… The Guy Fawkes Day refrain filled the air, and Anonymous masks were everywhere.

Gazing into that 2016 photo in 2025 –  like a crystal ball in reverse – took me back to a past I so wished could be present, if for no other reason but that my darling Max would be alive again. But there were other reasons. Indeed, it seemed like it was a whole different era – a time of eros and innocence and so much fun – that Saturday night before Election Tuesday, November 8^th (Max’s real birthday), and the electoral dysfunction of 2016.

Not that Capitalogenic fascism and Neo-Puritanical censorship weren’t already well under way, but they were hidden within the velvet glove of Obama’s eloquence. Hillary, with her chickenhawk ways, was not so *likeable,* but at least she could be counted on for female empowerment and picking a liberal SCOTUS or two, so almost all our guests – including the Netflix crew that was filming us that night – was voting for her.  Max liked Hillary more than I did, clutching his Mrs. Clinton Mask-on-a-Stick close to his heart through much of that show. Like her or not – Remember, remember, the 5^th of November – all the pollsters were serenely confident Hillary would win.

Within three short November days, that serenity would go up in Trumpish smoke and gaudy gold mirrors, and our ecstatic erotic joy would be engulfed by the Trumpocalypse, and then the Coronapocalypse, the Billionaire Mind Virus, the Zionist horrors of Gaza and the ICE raids of America. Yes, tyranny had been creeping up on us, but soon enough we’d be under the boot of Fascism on Steroids.

Also, soon – far too soon – Max would be gone.

But that wild night in 2016, we were happy bacchanalian bonobo sapiens sharing free speech, free love and topless cake with erotic theater therapy, celebrating Capt’n Max’s birthday and the second anniversary of The Bonobo Way, gearing up for a “woman in charge,” blissfully unaware we were headed skull-first into Trumpty Dumpty’s wall.

Of course, some of us were secretly scared as our (pre-X) Twitter feeds filled with Hillary’s Emails and Podesta’s “Spirit Cooking.” But on the surface, we couldn’t and wouldn’t imagine that a cretinous creep like the Trumpus would win the White House – let alone win it again and turn it into the Gold House. We were living a dream, and in for a rude awakening from which some of us sleepyheads are still trying to wake up – even as we’re chastised for being “woke.”

Except Max. Sadly, there would be no more wake-up calls for my darling Max.

Well, it was a nice moment, sharing memories of Max with friends. So, there’s hope, you might say.

Hope is the one great (potentially) evil spirit that Pandora left in her Box when she let all the other evils fly out into the world… or is it the one great good?

Both a blessing and curse, even at the bottom of the bottomless barrel of hopelessness – aka, Life Without Max – there is the thin, damaged wildcard of hope.

Read “Bottomless Grief & Topless Cake” on COUNTERPUNCH

Not sure what that portends, but there really is something to look forward to coming up soon: Max to the Maximus will be on Max’s birthday Saturday November 8, 2025, to be declared “Free Speech Day,” in tribute to Max’s Free Speech legacy as well as the 11^th anniversary of The Bonobo Way.

Whether you’re good with grief or an award-winning party animal or one of those rare bonobo sapiens who can juggle both, join us in Bonoboville or on the air somewhere as we honor, mourn and CELEBRATE MAX to the Maximus – with bonobo love.

© Septenber 4,  2025  Susan Block, Ph.D., a.k.a. “Dr. Suzy,” is a world renowned LA sexologist, author of The Bonobo Way: The Evolution of Peace through Pleasure, occasionally seen on HBO and other channels. For information, call 626-461-5950. Email her at drsusanblock@gmail.com and you will get a reply